The latest S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index shows an 11.2% annual gain in home prices for January, up from 10.4% the previous month. Home prices also rose in all of the top 20 metros included in the index’s 20-City Composite.
“The strong price gains that we observed in the last half of 2020 continued into the first month of the new year,” says Craig J. Lazzara, managing director and global head of index investment strategy at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “… The National Composite’s 11.2% gain is the highest recorded since February 2006, just one month shy of 15 years ago. In more than 30 years of S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller data, January’s year-over-year change is comfortably in the top decile. That strength is reflected across all 20 cities. January’s price gains in every city are above that city’s median level and rank in the top quartile of all reports in 18 cities.”
The 10-City Composite came in with a 10.9% annual increase, up from 9.9% the previous month, while the 20-City Composite showed an 11.1% annual increase, up from 10.2% the previous month.
Phoenix showed the strongest YOY price gains of the top 20 cities at 15.8%, followed by Seattle at 14.3% and 14.2% in San Diego.
“January’s data remain consistent with the view that COVID has encouraged potential buyers to move from urban apartments to suburban homes,” Lazzara says. “This demand may represent buyers who accelerated purchases that would have happened anyway over the next several years. Alternatively, there may have been a secular change in preferences, leading to a shift in the demand curve for housing. Future data will be required to analyze this question.”
